Dark chocolate is a much loved treat or even daily habit, and as a consumer you’ll find a dizzying array of choices and claims. In this article you’ll learn how to identify erroneous and elitist claims using cacao genetics. We hope to inspire cacao lovers and producers alike to abandon myopic conversations about genetic classification, and pay attention to the larger systems at play affecting Theobroma cacao, the cacao tree.

These topics include dizzying ecosystem loss, poor incentives for quality in commodity cacao pricing, and the covert push for acceptance of genetically modified cacao. We know that if you stick with us for some short reading, you’ll be able to dazzle and educate your friends with some truly insider understanding of cacao.

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    Figure 1: The hybrid genetic profile of the cacao we use from Belize, using primary strains. 

Second, if someone tells you their cacao is the best because of a genetic reason, find a more integrous and informed source. Or, if you are up for the conversation, offer them your knowledge from this article. If they are adamant about their claims of Criollo, demand traceability and proof. We believe that cacao marketing with genetics is usually not malicious, but mostly just terribly misinformed. There have been some atrocious misadventures in industrial cacao growing, such as the development of cacao strains like CCN-51, which are just optimized for productivity at the expense of everything else, such as flavor and spirit. So, it’s quite likely someone marketing cacao genetics is attempting to differentiate themselves from these harmful practices. But as should be clear by now, cacao genetics are complex, and marketers need to take responsibility, as quite a lot of damage can result from ignoring the complexity of nature by pushing a buzzword in favor of monetary gain.

1. Ecosystem Loss is a Real Threat to the Future of Chocolate

Ecosystem loss has a real impact on the future of chocolate. During the peak of the last ice age twenty one thousand years ago, cacao found refuge in the upper Amazon headwaters in an area of roughly overlapping modern day Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil. Hence, this region is the biodiversity reservoir of genetic diversity, the vast majority of which has not been used in breeding modern cultivated cacao and is often entirely wild or grown in extremely limited quantities by local residents and indigenous communities. Regrettably, many of these regions have been exploited for timber or have been clear cut for extending cattle grazing pastures. This type of ecosystem loss impacts the biodiversity of cacao and its genetic reservoir. Once lost, it is always lost. 

3. Regenerative Cacao, Not GMO Cacao, is Climate Resilient

Genetically modified cacao is being pushed by “big chocolate.” Much of industrial cacao is grown in highly unsustainable ways in West Africa, largely in Ivory Coast and Ghana. Increasingly, these small holder farmers are facing more impacts from global warming. Big chocolate producers are increasingly making noise to make the public fearful of the impacts of global warming on the chocolate supply chain. They are manipulating this fear to push support for genetically modified cacao crops that will be climate change resistant. As genetic engineering in other crops such as corn have shown us, this is terribly dangerous to biodiversity. The true way to make cacao crops climate resilient is to plant cacao in regenerative polyculture systems, to empower local farming communities, and to shift the market to focus more on the quality of the cacao than on the volume of output.